The Not-So-Secret Israeli Plan for Gaza: Never Leaving

Here is the bottom line: Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has no intention of leaving Gaza, either before Israel’s general elections—likely to be held in October—or after. Conceding an inch from the roughly 70 percent of the territory his army currently occupies in Gaza will be considered a weakness by the majority of Israeli voters and would result in an open revolt within his extremist coalition.

He has made his intentions clear time and again. Recent statements by Israel's political leadership have only reinforced that reality, with officials insisting that Israel must maintain indefinite military dominance over the Strip and explicitly rejecting any framework that requires a full withdrawal of troops. To Netanyahu, the military footprint in Gaza is a permanent fixture, not a temporary bargaining chip.

Some may argue that Netanyahu’s statements are merely political fodder aimed at prolonging his career and avoiding the disastrous outcomes awaiting him—in terms of state investigations and court trials—should he be ejected from power. However, his extremist policies throughout his entire career at the helm of Israeli politics say otherwise. There has never been a period in Netanyahu’s history in which he showed a genuine willingness to compromise or engage in an authentic political process with the Palestinians.

The political track aimed at reconstructing Gaza and ending the Israeli military presence has little bearing on the grim realities unfolding on the ground.

This reduces the point of the Washington-led Board of Peace and its subsequent administrative bodies to near irrelevance. These entities—including the National Committee for the Administration of Gaza (NCAG) and a multinational International Stabilization Force (ISF)—were supposedly assembled with the sole aim of managing a transitional phase, delivering humanitarian aid, and deploying a peacekeeping buffer to facilitate a gradual Israeli military withdrawal.

It seems that two separate, irreconcilable tracks are taking shape. One is the Israeli track of continued war, entrenched military occupation, and prolonged genocide. The other is an international track, controlled firmly by Washington, aimed largely at finding alternative ways to manage Gaza on behalf of Israel.

Yet even with its obvious limitations, the Gaza plan’s first phase theoretically promises a phased Israeli military repositioning, a sustainable ceasefire, a massive influx of reconstruction aid, and the gradual handover of civil administration to a non-factional Palestinian authority.

Little of that has actually been delivered. While the United States and international envoys claim the ceasefire hinges on disarmament, Israel has used the diplomatic deadlock to advance its troops further into the Strip rather than withdrawing them. Aid remains choked at the borders, and the promised reconstruction has not even begun.

Indirect talks are ongoing in Cairo, though it seems that only Palestinians are being held accountable or expected to carry out heavy concessions. Moreover, after 19 years of Hamas governing Gaza, the movement announced on July 6 that it has officially dissolved the Emergency Committee that has been administering the Strip. The movement declared its full readiness to transfer governance to the National Committee, intended to administer Gaza under the framework of the US-brokered plan.

On paper, this suggests that a political transition is finally underway. In reality, no such transition is taking place.

Israel is actively preventing this technocratic government from assuming any real duties. Rather than facilitating a civil handover, the Israeli political security cabinet has completely dismissed the transition. Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Sa’ar openly labeled the move a "trick," arguing that a technocratic administration would merely be responsible for municipal tasks like garbage collection while allowing resistance networks to persist.

Instead, Israel’s military strategy continues to fuel conditions that undermine any possibility of stabilizing the devastated Strip. Its objective is not merely to reject an alternative Palestinian administration, but to ensure that no functioning Palestinian governing authority can emerge at all. By doing so, Tel Aviv wants to create a permanent governance vacuum, sowing further chaos and fragmentation.

If no alternative Palestinian political body is permitted to stabilize Gaza, the default collapse will inevitably force local factions to reassert control over daily survival, thus giving Israel yet more pretenses to exact more punishment on a helpless population.

Following the Hamas political move, Israel simply responded with its standard currency: immediate violence. This was starkly illustrated on July 9, when Israeli forces carried out a targeted airstrike on a vehicle in Gaza City in a failed attempt to assassinate Hamas spokesman Hazem Qassem. Though the assassination attempt failed, the strike sent a clear message that Israel has no intention of respecting political transformations or ceasefires.

While no houses are being built, no schools are being constructed, and no hospitals are being revived, the only numbers that keep growing are those of the dead and wounded. The human cost has reached unfathomable proportions: the Palestinian death toll in Gaza has surpassed 73,000, with the number of wounded exceeding 173,200. Tragically, these numbers continue to climb daily: over 1,098 Palestinians have been killed since the so-called ceasefire framework was initially agreed upon, proving that the truce exists only in media rhetoric, not on the ground.

This leaves us with a single, inescapable conclusion: the political track aimed at reconstructing Gaza and ending the Israeli military presence has little bearing on the grim realities unfolding on the ground.

The only way out is a stronger, independent international will that wrestles the future of Gaza from the grip of Netanyahu, translating political agreements into immediate humanitarian outcomes and a definitive end to the Israeli occupation.

Until Israel is compelled to relinquish its military control over Gaza, every new committee, reconstruction mechanism, or diplomatic initiative risks becoming little more than political theater.